Just a few bird tests

A few birds that got in the way of testing with my D200. I have several thousand shots in the last 3 days, almost too many to keep track of, but I have been learning and experimenting with the camera under real world birding conditions, So of course a few birds got in the way.....

first a 100% crop of trumpeter swans, 1/200, monopod ISO 200, 200-400VR with 1.7, Yes they were really a long long way off! They almost looked like dots on the full frame! Love this big pixel dimensions. Now I know what you D2x folks have been crowing about!

And some evening pels in the golden light, probably around a 75% crop, taken with the 200VR and 1.4 attached, so 280mm at 1/1250 at ISO 200 hand held.

The swan shot has some issues as far as sharpness goers
. At first I was leaning towards low shutter speeds causing motion blur and then I was also going to attribute some of it to the TC1& with a 200-400 as that combination stunk on my X.

Now that I look closer however, I'm wondering why the mallard in the back left is in focus whereas the geese are not?

If you look closely, it appears that the water around the duck is in the plane of focus as well, while the geese clearly are not.

The swan shot has some issues as far as sharpness goers
. At first I was leaning towards low shutter speeds causing motion blur and then I was also going to attribute some of it to the TC1& with a 200-400 as that combination stunk on my X.
Now that I look closer however, I'm wondering why the mallard in the back left is in focus whereas the geese are not?
If you look closely, it appears that the water around the duck is in the plane of focus as well, while the geese clearly are not.
Which focus mode were you using?

Click to expand...

Good eye Jim, I will go back to the original and take a closer look. I think on this series of tests I was on wide focus area, dynamic, and I found I didn't like this as well as the 11 area focus and the smaller focus spots. The wider center area was covering this whole area on the above photo since they were so far away and this is a 100% crop. Plus the monopod was shaking sitting in the right seat in my car and things were bouncing around a lot, so it could easily have been operator error causing the sensor to move over to that duck, even with VR on.

Probably did focus on the mallard. good catch.

I know the combo of 200-400VR and 1.7 is sharp for me and d70, but I still haven't nailed an obvious super super sharp shot yet with the D200. Getting closer but nothing like this yet.....

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